Commentary on Innate Pleasure
"Syggenis Hedone" as a Salvific Doctrine
I wish a Happy and Peaceful Eikas to my Epicurean readers everywhere! Today I will focus on statements that Epicurus makes in his Epistle to Menoeceus which relate to the syggenis hedone doctrine, which says that pleasure is innate to our bodies and minds, and I will expound some of my recent thoughts on this. This will be the first in a series of essays.
The Sources
In the Letter to Menoeceus, Epicurus says several things that are relevant to innate pleasure. Right after explaining that our nature seeks to avoid bodily pain and mental perturbation, he says:
We need pleasure only when we are in pain caused by its absence; but when we are not in pain then we have no need of pleasure.
τότε γὰρ ἡδονῆς χρείαν ἔχομεν, ὅταν ἐκ τοῦ μὴ παρεῖναι τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀλγῶμεν· <ὅταν δὲ μὴ ἀλγῶμεν> οὐκέτι τῆς ἡδονῆς δεόμεθα.
He says “when we are not in pain, we have no NEED for pleasure”. This first statement implies that we already have some form of pleasure when we are not in pain. This seems to rephrase Principal Doctrine 3. He then goes on:
This is why we say that pleasure is the beginning and the end of a completely happy life. For we recognize it as the primary and innate good
καὶ διὰ τοῦτο τὴν ἡδονὴν ἀρχὴν καὶ τέλος λέγομεν εἶναι τοῦ μακαρίως ζῆν. ταύτην γὰρ ἀγαθὸν πρῶτον καὶ συγγενικὸν ἔγνωμεν
Let us pay attention to the choice of words: τέλος (telos) refers to the end of nature. We will evaluate ἀρχὴν (archen) below. Together these two words were translated by Norman DeWitt as “alpha and omega” in order to argue that primitive Christians were attempting to revise an Epicurean doctrine when they attributed these words to Jesus. A search for archen online yields a link to ἀρχή, which translates as:
Archen kai telos, therefore, seems to be an expression that refers to the beginning and the end. Epicurus says more: he employs the words ἀγαθὸν πρῶτον (agathon proton, first good or primal good). In modern languages, “proto-” is still a prefix for primal or ancient, or the first prototypes of something, and this invites an exploration of the emergence of pleasure in sentient beings from the perspective of Darwinian evolution.
Epicurus employed the so-called “cradle argument”, pointing to how babies naturally seek pleasure and shun pain prior to any cultural indoctrination. This reminds me of how unhatched birds when they’re in their eggs still have scales like their dinosaur ancestors. The traits and behaviors of creatures in their earliest stages are indicative of deeply embedded traits that helped their ancestors to survive. The cradle argument implies that there is something in our nature that actively seeks our self-interest and works our safety and salvation by using pleasure and aversion as an incentive even without our conscious input, since newborn creatures do not yet have reasoning abilities.
Epicurus further qualifies pleasure as agathon (a good) proton (first, primal) kai (and) suggenikon (innate). The word συγγενικὸν (syggenikon) translates as:
(of a predisposition to disease) congenital or hereditary
(figurative) kindred, of a common kind
The etymology provided for this word is from σύν (sún, “with”, “together”) + γενικός (genikós), where genikós translates as:
Further down, Epicurus refers to proton agathon kai symfyton again when he says:
And because this is the primary and inborn good …
καὶ ἐπεὶ πρῶτον ἀγαθὸν τοῦτο καὶ σύμφυτον
Here, he chose the word σύμφυτον (symfyton), a search for which leads us to the word συμφύω (sumphúō) which translates as:
(active voice) to make to grow together, to unite
(passive voice) to grow together, to unite
(passive voice) to unite with
(passive voice) to become assimilated or natural
while the Study Light translation (used for Bible study) offers this translation:
born together with, of joint origin
connate, congenital, innate, implanted by birth or nature
grown together, united with
kindred
The Hegemon describes pleasure as congenital by the choice of the words symfyton and syggenikon. This must have been an established and settled doctrine among the Kathegemones (Epicurean Guides) by the time he authored his Epistle to Menoeceus. This means that pleasure was always there, from the beginning, in our nature. We may think of it as a congenital faculty, or a congenital part of our nature, or as an ever-present potential—in which case, the main utility of Epicurean philosophical praxis is that it serves as a means to awaken and cultivate our pleasure potential.
A Doctrine of Universal Salvation
Epicurus says that pleasure is primal and congenital to our nature, and (like Aristippus) he says that it is choice-worthy for its own sake, yet we do not see that all sentient beings live pleasantly. Some live more pleasantly than others, whether for reasons of circumstance or of constitution. From all this, we infer that all sentient beings have some innate pleasure potential, which they may or may not realize.
When we say that pleasure is our first and innate good, this is not to say that we do not have other (often competing) tendencies in our nature (like passions or fears), as Liber Tertivs makes clear. Our innate pleasure exists as a seed, in potential form, surrounded by other faculties, powers, and tendencies. This is explained by Epicurus in his sermon on moral development, where he says we carry various seeds and germs within us, potentials that we may endorse or reject.
In order to frame a practice of this syggenis hedone doctrine, we must awaken, identify with, and cultivate the seeds that help us to easily experience pleasures so that they become the stronger tendencies within us, and we must choose, develop, and practice technologies of the self for achieving this.
Epicurus’ teaching on innate pleasure is a naturalist doctrine of universal salvation that offers hope to all sentient beings, regardless of their background, based on their innate constitution. It makes no supernatural claims, and so it is different from other doctrines of universal salvation, and yet it offers a similar security and hope. In a future essay, I will explore some of the ways in which it is different from other (particularly Mahayana Buddhist) doctrines of universal salvation. One of the similarities is that it democratizes salvation: all beings, insofar as they can experience this innate pleasure, can easily attain a correct, pleasant quality of life.
I wish to note here, before we move on to the next section, the compassionate nature of the activity of the Epicureans of propagating and practicing this doctrine, which involves the redemption of this world in order to make this world worth living in, and to make this life worth living. While most conventional religions exploit people’s fear of death, the most universal vulnerability of mortals, by rejecting all supernatural claims related to the afterlife and vain other-worldly hopes, we instead insist on recognizing the value of this world. This activity redeems this world and gives us an urgency to live pragmatically, pleasantly, and correctly in this world.
VS 61 and Innate Pleasure
Those who have ill-will towards the Epicureans might consider the ethical focus on innate pleasure to be solipsistic and excessively focused on the subjective self. I have two arguments against this:
Principal Doctrine 2 frames death as nothing because it is non-sentience, and in doing so hints at a description of life as sentience, and since pleasure is the best mode of sentience, these doctrines together are both life-affirming and internally coherent, in addition to being natural, easy to understand, and requiring no supernatural claims.
I believe that the doctrine of innate pleasure helps to make sense of Vatican Saying 61, which counters this attack.
The sight of one's neighbors is most auspicious if it produces the like-mindedness of one's primary kin, or at least a serious interest in such like-mindedness.
καλλίστη καὶ ἡ τῶν πλησίον ὄψις τῆς πρώτης συγγενήσεως ὁμονοούσης ἢ καὶ πολλὴν εἰς τοῦτο ποιουμένης σπουδήν.
Kallisti kai i ton plesion opsis tis protis suggeneseos omonoousis i kai polli n eis touto poioumenis spoudin
Notice two things:
that the two words used by the Hegemon in the Epistle to Menoeceus to describe pleasure are also used here, and also used together: protes suggeneseos indicates “first” and “congenital”, and
That the above translation seems awkward, or awkwardly worded, if not wrong. It does not make a lot of sense.
I sought a different translation, and found this:
Most beautiful is the sight of those close to us, when our original contact makes us of one mind or produces a great incitement to this end.
Epicurus - Vatican Saying 61 (epicurus.net translation)
The whole idea of “original contact” seems, again, awkward, and it’s hard to make sense of it. “Primal kin” is also awkward and seems incorrect, since Epicurus associated with all kinds of people, and not only or particularly with his own family (his “original and primal kin”). But whoever added this teaching to the Vatican Sayings collection, must have believed that it contained an important bit of information.
I believe that the thing that makes people “single-minded” or “like-minded” (omo-noousis) is our shared innate pleasure and our intention to awaken it and cultivate it, and that it’s being referred to here by its quality of being primal and congenital (protes suggeneseos)—which is how Epicurus qualified pleasure in his Epistle to Menoeceus—rather than mentioned directly. This primal, congenital pleasure is what makes us single-minded, and what makes us want to study and practice philosophy.
If we read VS 61 in light of our doctrine of syggenis hedone, not only does it make much more sense, but it has the additional pragmatic repercussion of showing that this innate pleasure is not solipsistic. It’s not merely internal, self-referential, and self-concerned, but accepts causes of pleasure from within oneself and from others. Perhaps this is what the saying is arguing? If so, in this Vatican Saying, the Kathegemones are referring to innate pleasure as the thing that makes us like-minded with others—helping us to bond with them and encouraging our bodies’ release of oxytocin, the pleasure-inducing trust hormone. It makes us want to study and practice philosophy together, and it makes us happy when we see others who are like-minded. In other words, friends can help friends to awaken their innate happiness potential and generate causes for each other’s salvation.
The Seed of Pleasure
The way that this doctrine is explained makes me think of an embryonic seed of pleasure as a metaphor or parable for the task of awakening our bliss potential. This type of verbiage is in line with Epicurus’ manner of teaching in Book 25 of On Nature, in his “Sermon on Moral Development”, where Epicurus says that our initial constitution contains seeds (or germs) of good, bad and neutral tendencies. These include drives, tendencies, dispositions, mentalities, attitudes, and habits that may or may not germinate into the developed product depending on whether or not we endorse and nurture them.
The rational faculties of the soul (see our meleta on PD 20 for more on this), by choosing and rejecting, help to cultivate some seeds and repress or neglect others. We all do this every day and it’s part of what makes us civilized: we limit our wild impulses, particularly when in company. This is a natural process. Epicurus argued that, although both nature and fate interfere in the final product (our character and habits), we as moral agents are ultimately responsible for the character we develop, for changing the initial constitution by managing what seeds we nurture within our mind and character.
The conception of a seed of pleasure within our nature surrounded by seeds of other properties makes sense in light of the Epicurean rejection of Platonic dualism between body and soul: rather than understand pleasure as our higher, divine nature that is opposed to our fleshly, “lower” or animal nature, we must understand pleasure as part of a single, full nature, which includes both animal and divine tendencies. The parable of the seed of pleasure helps us to avoid Platonized or unnatural interpretations of pleasure.
We know that this pleasure is there from the beginning, but we also know that it must be developed. Since congenital pleasure has always been within us, it may have simply been dormant when we were unaware of its presence. It’s most useful to think of our practice as a series of methods and techniques for awakening and cultivating our pleasure potential and ethical faculties, and to organize ourselves around our practice of awakening and cultivating this seed.
If we approach our practice this way, we can much more easily connect theory and praxis with particular exercises that are clearly contextualized and rooted in Epicurean teachings.
Conclusion
The Epicurean doctrine of syggenis hedone is a salvific paradigm shift if and when it’s accepted, understood, and acted upon. That our bodies have the wisdom to produce pleasure is an ordinary truth and, on its own, it’s not revolutionary unless there is an inner motion to study and practice Epicurean philosophy persistently and methodically enough to see the benefits. We see that countless beings have this potential, but they never care to nurture it methodically or systematically. Therefore, we must understand that the paradigm shift in our practice is the recognition of this seed of syggenis hedone and the firm resolve to awaken, practice, and cultivate our innate pleasure so that we are not wasting our one and only life. That’s the utility of accepting and practicing the doctrine of syggenis hedone.
In future essays, I will delve into this in greater depth. The ancient Epicurean Guides often gave instructions to their students to write their own commentaries and outlines of the doctrines they were studying. I invite students to do the same with syggenis hedone, which I believe is fertile ground for connecting theory and practice both by ourselves and with others of like mind.
